[CentOS] Re: useradd: unable to lock password file

[Nick Bryant]

> On Thu, 2005-09-01 at 15:32 +1000, Nick Bryant wrote:
> > > On 8/31/05, Nick Bryant <list at everywhereinternet.com> wrote:
> > > > Ok $200USD for anyone who can help me fix this now.... rebooted and
> it
> > > > doesn't say the file is locked anymore... the useradd command just
> > > doesn't
> > > > die or return anything and just sits there chewing data :(
> > > >
> > > > Man down.
> > > >
> > >
> > > How about pwck and/or grpck ?
> > >
> > > And if that fixes it, send the money to the CentOS developers.
> > >
> >
> > Be glad too.
> >
> > Ok I think I found the problem... is there a maximum number of entries
> in
> > /etc/passwd? I just removed the last 1000 lines and its working again,
> total
> > entires in the file now 59463.
> >
> > Problem is its really slow to add new users now (around 10 seconds). We
> have
> > several scripts that create newusers so I guess that's what caused the
> > locking situation.
> >
> > Could a corruption be whats slowing it down (running pwck -r now) or am
> I
> > just approaching the limits of a flat file auth scheme?
> 
> Take a look at /etc/login.defs the stock max UID is 60000.

Bingo! That's got to be what caused it to just keel.

[root at bill syd01]# cut -d":" -f 3 passwd |sort -rn |more
60000
59999

If I just change that file will I need to restart anything? Sorry for the
noob question but I'm a +60K user virgin. (The sub-dir 32K limit for home
dirs was equally as big a learning curve ;o)

N